Book Review
 

Has anyone read an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy book by Bertrand Russell?

I found his History of Western Philosophy to be very concise and very readable, yet this book was printed in 1919 and I don't know to what extent mathematics has changed or developed in the ensuing 89 years.

Anyone?

Re: Book Review
 

No but I'm reading A Thousand Suns at the moment if that helps!

Re: Book Review
 

Funnily enough, it does help. NOT!

Although at the moment, I'm currently not reading the copy of The Kite Runner that I have borrowed.

Re: Book Review
 

Might watch the film.

Might illegally download.

Then again I might not do anything of the sort.

WHO KNOWS?

Re: Book Review
 

Havent read it, but it's probably an introduction to Bertrand Russell's own views on the philosophy of mathematics (logicism). Its short though, so why not. Just be aware that its most likely a one-sided presentation, and that its very old (even things like ZFC/Godel werent around when it was written).

As a counter-balance I'd recommend this, which is a more of an empiricist/anti-foundationalist perspective.

Its very readable/well-written, but its also quite biased/one-sided, and his scholarship towards people he doesnt agree with (Hegel/Nietzsche/etc) is appalling. Its largely because of this book that I suspect BRs introduction to mathematical philosophy is going to be more about BR's own views than about mathematical philosophy in general.

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I bought the film today. I read the Kite Runner in January. It's a beautifully written book, and the film is supposed to be just as moving.

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The first half is good, before it turns into generic Hollywood 'wooo gotta go rescue the boy and kill all da baddies' nonsense.

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Yeah but you have a heart of stone so I don't really rate your opinion of a touching tragic story. If it was a book about numbers or something you'd be my first port of call!

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I saw the film months ago at the cinema and was really touched walking out of the building at the end of it. I recently started reading the book and although I'm not very far in it yet I have to say it's beautifully written with enough extra detail and nuance to make me forget the film's plot.

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After youve watched it you can come back here and tell me I'm right.

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Anyone you know?

Re: Book Review
 

I haven't read this particular book and I don't really know much about it but here goes anyway.

Russell, with Alfred North Whitehead, was trying to prove the internal consistancy of mathematics using as few axioms as possible. Using set theory and building on the earlier work of Frege, he found some paradoxes (mostly of self-reference I think) and therefore failed. This seemed to be a popular pasttime, I think David Hilbert was trying the same thing with geometry.

Later, in the 1930s, Paul Gödel proved that the task was impossible with his incompleteness theorem. I think this came as a bit of a shock to mathematicians.

The was a ressurgance of multi-valued logic in the 60s, this time dubbed fuzzy logic by Lotfi Zadeh. This does away with the law of excluded middle, which I believe to be the cause of Russell's paradoxes. Later work by Bart Kosko introduces the concept of fuzzy containment, which I think should provide an escape from the paradox, but I haven't seen anything directly say this. It might just be a cop-out of saying 'don't know' or 'maybe'.

I don't know if fuzzy logic had a big impact on maths as a whole but it did on me personally, I really should read more on it.

I'd be interested to know more about the book and whether you agree with the things it says.